


That Boy

by tetsubinatu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-13
Updated: 2008-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsubinatu/pseuds/tetsubinatu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Fantasy Fest 2008:  Long-fic Challenge 25 -- Post-war, plausible survival scenario, established relationship (either new or long-standing). Somehow R finds out that Sirius left a child, and wants to adopt it. I like my S snarky, but not cruel. Any rating. Happy endings are best! :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Boy

“It’s not what you are thinking, Severus.” Lupin dropped his head, the picture of guilt. “Really, it’s not,” he muttered hopelessly.

Severus stood very straight, his face set into the unreadable mask that Remus had hoped was left behind forever after Voldemort’s defeat. “Then ease my mind, Lupin. You are not making regular ‘shopping trips’ to Diagon Alley to meet another man?”

“No!”

There was a slight pause before Snape offered, “...or woman?”

“No!”

“Sentient being?”

Remus’ mouth opened automatically to deny it, but then a frown crossed his forehead and he closed it again. “Sort of...” he admitted grudgingly. “I am meeting a boy.”

Severus face eased slightly, although you would have had to be watching very closely to notice. “Then it is indubitably not what I thought,” he conceded graciously. “Nevertheless you are hiding something from me regarding these meetings, and it is giving you a guilty conscience. You had best tell me now, before things get worse.”

Remus sighed. “How do you feel about adoption?” he asked his lover of two years.

“It is a fine institution,” Severus replied flatly, his blank stare giving nothing away.

“How would you feel about us adopting an eight-year-old boy with no education and appalling manners?”

Remus’ face was screwed into an expression Severus had never seen upon his face before. It seemed to be composed of one part bravado, four parts misery, two parts dread and one lonely part of hope. The words were ridiculous. The idea was ridiculous. The way Remus had blurted them out was idiotic, and yet... he meant it. Somewhere there was an eight-year-old boy with no education and appalling manners who had managed to secure so deep a hold upon Remus’ heart that Remus was seriously considering adopting him, even in the face of what he must surely know would be high to total resistance from Severus.

Severus needed more information. “Tell me about the boy.”

Remus gasped, clearly having anticipated an explosion before this point. “He’s eight,” he faltered.

“Yes, I heard that. Eight years old. Appalling manners. No education. Nothing there to suggest adoption.”

“Um. Black hair. Grey eyes. Not too tall, I think. His name...” Remus took a deep breath, “... his name is Reg.”

“Reg. As in rhymes with egg.”

Remus looked at the ceiling.

“Unusual name. Is it short for anything?”

“Regulus. Regulus Cuttle.”

The silence stretched out between them. Remus’ mouth was set, and Severus face was made of stone.

“And who is... was? Mrs Cuttle?”

Remus’ eyes closed briefly, his demeanour giving away the fact that this was the crucial question. “She was a guard in Azkaban from 1992 until her death in 1999.”

“I... see.”

Remus shivered.

“Is there a father listed upon the birth certificate? A Mr Cuttle?”

Remus shook his head. “No birth certificate, as far as I can tell. No known father. Reg lives with his mother’s brother. There was a grandmother who died in the Troubles,” he explained, using the euphemism that the Wizarding World had taken up to refer to the time when Voldemort openly controlled the Ministry.

“You think he’s the Mutt’s, don’t you?” Severus’ voice was too even and casual to be believable, but Remus seized eagerly upon the question, too grateful to be past the hurdle of revelation to be suspicious.

“He looks like a Black, and he has a Black family name - and all the Blacks but Sirius were dead by the time he was conceived. He has no idea, but every time I meet him I become more sure!”

“You want me to adopt Black’s child with you?”

Remus’ heart was in his eyes, damn werewolf. “Yes?”

Severus wanted to shriek; to throw a tantrum worthy of Lucius, of Voldemort himself. Over the past two years he had built a life out of the ashes of his youth: a man - well, werewolf - who loved him; a small, cosy cottage; a mail-order potions business. Strangers still spit upon him, but in a drawer by his bedside he had an Order of Merlin, second class, and Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World (TM) regularly came to dine with him. (No-one had to know that Severus hated the dinner parties and endured them purely for the sake of his partner.)

The words “Over my dead pulsating body!” hovered unspoken on his lips. Finally he forced out “What time are you meeting the boy?”

“1 o’clock at Fortescues. I was planning to pick up some groceries at Greenslades on the way.”

Remus looked hopeful and Severus wanted to ram the heel of his hand into the end of that pig-ignorant Gryffindor nose and force bits of cartilage and bone into his deluded brain. He waited a moment for the red haze to clear before he gritted out, “I’ll meet you there.”

 

PART TWO

It had been two years, but the bar of the Hag and Badger - known to its regulars as the Hag’n’Bag - looked just the same as ever. Severus ordered a pint of Old Mild before turning to check the dark corners for the man he was after. He was still in his old corner, and luckily he was alone.

“Make that two,” Severus told the bar maid, holding up two fingers.

He slid into the corner booth at the same time as he slid the pint over to the man in the corner.

“Been a while,” said the man, eyes sharp as a weasel’s.

“I turned respectable,” Severus granted.

The man took the beer, and they drank quietly for a few moments.

“So what’s a respectable War Hero want at the Hag’n’Bag?” the man finally asked.

“Same as ever: a pint of Old Mild and a chat with an old ... acquaintance.”

The man grinned, showing yellowed teeth. “Pay well, War Hero-ing?”

Severus raised one eyebrow, “What do you think?”

“I think you turned respectable. Got a little house, aint’cha? An’ a business?”

Severus pursed his lips. “I answer to no master now,” he conceded.

The other man’s lips twitched. “What, no deep pockets to draw on, no more?”

Severus sighed.

“Twenty galleons,” his informant said briskly.

“Two!” Severus scoffed, “and even then, the information had better be worth it.”

In the end he paid eight. He’d been in a hurry.

The boy called his uncle ‘Uncle Bill’. Everyone else called him Squid. Severus’ informant had assumed that he was interested in Cuttle for his smuggling services to Azkaban, which were apparently reliable enough to make him the premier contact for such services. He was a fighter, a respected street-boxer when he was younger, and still free with his fists. His care for the boy was at best negligent and occasionally brutal, but the boy was well-liked on the street for his good humour and outgoing nature.

And there was one more thing.

Everyone knew, for Squid had made the matter plain upon more than one occasion, that he had promised his mother on her death-bed not to sell the boy for bed services before he turned twelve.

Severus was thinking about this as he apparated to Fortescues. Had the grandmother expectations of a Hogwarts letter? In Knockturn Alley that would be ambition indeed. Or had she merely hoped that by twelve he would be old and swift enough to keep out of his uncle’s grasp?

* * *

 

The boy was everything that Lupin had claimed, and worse. He talked non-stop. He talked with his mouth full. He talked incessantly in an appalling accent and with all the grammatical finesse of a two-year-old, if a two-year-old had a wharfie’s vocabulary. He was utterly impossible. Severus would put his foot down.

Severus looked at his lover, who was pressing the filthy boy to have a fruit salad, and knew that it was not going to be easy. Mentally he sorted his plans into order.

First, establish whether the child is actually Black’s. The very easiest way to dissuade Lupin from taking an interest would be to disprove paternity, however since proof could go either way, best not to let Remus know until the result was known to be the result Severus wanted.

Second line of defence - find a suitable foster family or orphanage. Remus might insist on this even if the child were not Black’s. Remus was always a soft touch.

Third line of defence - bribe the uncle to keep the child.

But at the back of his mind Severus heard his informant’s low chuckle, “...until he’s twelve! How’s he gonna hold out that long, eh?” Perhaps a foster family might be a reasonable solution, and if a whisper of that issue came to Remus’ ears it would be the best Severus could hope for.

After the boy had been fed and sent home with a new warm jacket which Remus just happened to have picked up while doing his shopping - Remus’ casual air did not fool Severus one whit; that was what the werewolf had planned to buy all along, he was sure - came the interrogation.

Did not Severus think the boy was the spitting image of Sirius? Was he not handsome and clever? With so much potential - if someone were to take him in hand, of course. The questions were fired off so quickly that Severus did not really have a chance to answer, but Remus was eyeing him with a wary eagerness that spoke volumes. If he were to say the wrong thing right now he would have a cold bed that night and possibly longer, he was sure... but if he were not careful, he would find the boy installed in his spare bedroom within the week. His head was splitting from the child’s incessant chatter and the tension in the room. The peach sundae in his stomach churned uneasily.

“Let me think about it, Lupin,” he said wearily. “Just let me think.”

 

PART THREE

Remus remembered clearly the first time he had seen Reg. The small boy had been weaving through the crowd in Diagon Alley at a trot, fist clenched tightly around some small object. His speed and size, no less than his ragged dress, made him an oddity on the respectable strip.

As Remus watched he saw three bigger boys, nudging and smirking their way through the centre of the alley, turn aside and form a classic wedge formation in order to separate Reg from the crowd and thence into a disused alley - more of a crevice between buildings than a true laneway. The urchin appeared oblivious but at the last second he took four quick steps backwards and slipped sideways into Dervish and Banges. The expression on the older boys’ faces was classic comedy, at least until surprise was replaced by anger. Remus began to worry about the child’s safety when he saw two of them pursue him into the shop, while the largest stood watch outside.

Irresolute, he stood on the other side of Diagon Alley, considering what action would be appropriate, until he saw the young boy pop out of the little side-alley he had so adroitly avoided earlier, cast an anxious glance back at the doorway at which one boy still stood guard and slip unnoticed out into the crowds again. Remus grinned, and being in no particular hurry waited to see how the baffled pursuers would react. There was a chocolate bar in his pocket which he unwrapped to savour as he leaned casually against the warm red brick wall and awaited further developments. It was at least five minutes before the tallest boy exited the store, visibly fuming, and another three before the final boy appeared from down the alley, presumably having located the side-exit favoured by the urchin.

An interesting little vignette, Remus had thought at the time, but none of his business in the final analysis.

However once he had become aware of the existence of the small boy, he seemed to see him every time he ventured near Diagon Alley, running errands, playing marbles in the sun with a couple of slightly older boys, or idly bouncing a ball against a brick wall. There was something very appealing about him with his glossy black curls and ready grin, and a distinctly marauderish glint to his grey eyes.

Ironically, considering later events, Remus was on an errand for Severus, collecting some more ...unusual... potions ingredients from an address in a small laneway off Knockturn Alley, when he finally made Reg’s acquaintance. The boys who had been pursuing the smaller child on that first occasion came bursting into the laneway as he exited the tiny shop. Remus caught sight of a small knee protruding from behind a quivering dustbin on the other side of the laneway and cast a surreptitious disillusionment charm over the child. Wand held loosely in his hand he watched as the thugs casually sauntered down the lane towards him, the outermost boys kicking over or scrutinising every potential piece of cover.

“Afternoon,” their leader greeted him, blocking Remus’ view of the crucial dustbin. “’Ave yer seen a little boy go past? Me little brother thinks it’s funny to play hide 'n' seek in the alleys, but it just ain’t safe.” The look of mock innocence was rather well done, although Remus was in no danger of succumbing to it.

“Sorry,” he replied flatly. “I’m off to Fortescue’s for an ice. Have you looked there? Little boys like icecream, and I bet he’ll turn up there when he’s ready to make an appearance.”

He really didn’t like to turn his back on them, but as he walked away he heard only the sound of another box being kicked as the little gang moved further into the alley and away from him.

Remus was only at Fortescues for twenty minutes, hunched over a coffee and the Quibbler in a dim corner behind an advertising board, before quick, light footsteps made their way towards him, seemingly unencumbered by any bodily manifestation. Knowing who must be there, he could dimly see the boy’s outline. “Would you like an ice?” he asked, pulling the chair opposite him out to indicate where the child should sit.

“Are yer gonna take the spell off me?” The shadow halted, warily, just out of grabbing range.

“Of course! I told you where to find me, didn’t I?”

The shadow conceded the point by sitting down. Remus waved to Angus Fortescue who gestured back with an icecream scoop to indicate that he would be there in a minute.

Remus cast the spell to reveal his wary guest, and was rather shocked to find that the boy had a deep black bruise on one cheek underlying more recent bleeding scrapes and a general layer of dirt.

“We’d better get you cleaned up, and then we’ll have icecream,” he said, and before the child could flinch he transfigured a paper napkin to more sturdy towelling and dampened it with water from his glass. Angus came over to the table as he was gently cleaning the wounds. The child put up no more than the token resistence one would expect of a boy that age.

“My usual, if you please, Angus, and something for my young friend.” He looked expectantly at the boy, who muttered, ‘Chocolate cherry’.

Remus concentrated on a tricky scrape, but confirmed the order. “And a chocolate cherry sundae please.” He smiled up at Angus, who nodded genially, apparently unphased by Reg’s appearance, and went back to the counter.

“There we go.” Remus sat back to examine his handiwork, then, frowning, scourgified the cloth and redampened it, handing it to the boy with the instruction “Hands, please.”

The boy looked uncertainly at the cloth he was holding, then seeming to grasp what was expected of him, cleaned his hands, if not thoroughly then at least to a reasonable state of hygiene. The dirty ring around the wrists was best ignored, Remus decided, vanishing the cloth. A gentle healing spell improved the bruise and scrapes. “Sorry, healing was never my best talent,” he apologised. “I only wish it was. I’m Remus.”

“Reg,” the boy volunteered. “Thanks.”

Remus blinked. And suddenly the fall of black hair over grey eyes, the sulky pout and high cheekbones reminded him irresistably of another Reg. Remus could almost feel the pieces falling into place.

Something must have shown on his face, because the boy flinched. “Wot?” he demanded. The accent was in sharp contrast to the face in Remus’ thoughts.

“Sorry. I knew a boy named Reg once.”

“Was he Regulus, like me? Cos lots of wankers call me Redge - or Rick - but me real name’s Regulus. Uncle Bill says that’s a fuckin’ nob’s name, and me mam was a bloody foolish bitch to call me that, but he doesn’t mind Reg.”

“Yes, he was Regulus too. You live with your Uncle?”

He had unleashed a torrent of words; the boy barely paused for breath until his chocolate cherry sundae arrived. Soon Remus knew all about his life. He let the words swirl about him, creating the image of a child’s contricted world, lacking in education, material goods or the expectation of comfort, gentleness or safety. Remus had lived in that world for many years, but not as a child, and not without awareness of that other middle-class reality in which he had been raised.

When it came, the icecream was granted the attention it deserved, every bite savoured, and then the child became aware of the lengthening shadows. “Gotta go, Remus; Uncle Bill needs me home before the shops close today. He’s got a job for me,” he confided, proud of his competence and his Uncle’s trust.

Remus let him go, but the promise of another sundae next time they met gave him confidence that the child would find him again. The boy was beginning to trust him. But who was he? He had to be a Black. However, how to account for this particular 8 year old scion of the most Noble and Ancient House of Black currently residing in Knockturn Alley had Remus stumped.

But he was going to find out.

 

PART FOUR

As soon as he awoke, Severus embarked upon the first part of his plan: disproving the boy’s supposed parentage. The matter should be easy enough to settle, with only the slightest touch of illegality. Severus knew for a fact that there was a trunk full of Black’s possessions in the attic hidden under Remus’ mother’s things. Remus should never have been so careless as to assume that Severus would leave those boxes untouched just because they were out of sight and their existence had never been mentioned. Naturally Severus had checked the boxes thoroughly within the first week in which they had been stacked in the attic. Inside Black’s trunk was a tarnished silver-backed hairbrush set marked with the Heir’s Coat of Arms for the Black family and holding quite a quantity of dark wavy hair.

By mid-morning Severus had created the simplest of all geneticist’s tools, the Consanguinuity Potion. One drop of the child’s blood in it should clarify his relationship to Black once and for all. If the clear blue potion turned pearl grey then there was a relationship near enough to qualify as ‘of the same blood’ - first cousin, nephew or the like. A darker smoky grey meant a closer relationship, such as sibling, parent or son. Black would mean that the blood matched the original sample perfectly.

There were more complex potions which would provide more detailed data, but this was the easiest to create without specialised ingredients and the quickest by far. Now all he needed was a drop of the child’s blood.

* * *

 

Cuttle lived on the third floor of a rickety old building tucked behind a used furniture shop on the corner of Knockturn Alley and Fair Alley. Severus arrived wearing a nondescript glamour which would give anyone trying to sneak a peek underneath it a nasty shock and his lips twisted in amusement when a beggar lurking in the shadows near the entrance to the building suddenly swore and limped away with painful pustules on the soles of his feet. His amusement warmed him all the way up the rickety stairs.

He told Cuttle he wanted to get a message to MacIvoy in Azkaban, and when the details of that transaction were settled Severus added a casual request for a recommendation of a reliable purveyor of blood for potions. He allowed Cuttle to narrow the specifications to a virgin child under the age of ten with grey eyes before the man suggested his nephew, and further haggling for the price ensued.

Severus had the vial by lunchtime, having personally supervised its filling. The brat was quieter under the eye of his uncle, but even filthier than he had been at Fortescue’s, when he had at least appeared to have clean hands. Severus had set his teeth and sterilised the child’s inner elbow before drawing blood. How fastidious he had grown, he mused. The Cuttle residence was princely by comparison with the Dark Lord’s prisoners’ accommodation, and the child’s filth was just dirt.

In accordance with the needs of his assumed persona he had, of course, cast spells to check the child’s age, health and purity, and he was relieved to see that none of the results was unacceptable. The child’s age and purity were as described, and the health scan showed him to be slightly undernourished, but without serious disease or illness. He hadn’t lingered over the scan, but the data suggested that the child had been well cared for in infancy, so the malnourishment probably commenced after the death of the grandmother.

As he carried the vial down the garden path to his potions lab at the bottom of the garden Severus allowed for a moment the possibility to cross his mind that the child really was Black’s. He would know within a matter of minutes. And if that were the case then there was a very real possibility that he could lose Lupin. The Gryffindor had a Hufflepuff's sense of loyalty about some things, and a child of Black's would certainly be one of them. His chest constricted. But no, he shouldn’t run ahead of the evidence. In only a few minutes he would know, and then...

Methodically he placed the vial upon his workbench and labelled it with the date drawn and subject’s name and birthdate as supplied by Cuttle. A drop in an eyedropper and the rest of the vial was preserved and stored for future use.

Taking a vial of Consanguinuity Potion from its stand, Severus unstoppered it and dropped one drop of blood in.

Re-seal.

Swirl.

Grey burst from the potion like a dementor dropping from a clear blue sky. Darker, darker it grew, until the darkness tainted the whole vial.. Severus didn’t need his chart to know that the final shade meant that the child was close kin to Sirius Black: father, brother or son. And of those choices, the only one physically possible was ‘son’.

Regulus Cuttle was Sirius Black’s son.

Severus didn’t know how desperately he had believed that it wasn’t true until he held the proof of it in his hands.

Damn Sirius Black for managing to find a fuck in Azkaban, of all unlikely places, and damn Maisie Cuttle for failing to abort the result as soon as possible, and damn Regulus Cuttle for existing and damn Remus bloody Lupin for giving a flying fuck!

A cloud of starlings rose from the nearby apple tree as a heavy iron cauldron came hurtling through the lab window with a resounding crash and a spray of sparkling glass fragments.

 

PART FIVE

Two men lay in a bed, side by side, but no perceptive onlooker would have seen them as laying together. One lay on his side, as if asleep, but his breathing was not the slow, deep breathing of the sleeper, but the shallow, quiet breaths of one who wishes to remain invisible.

The other man was more frankly awake, head on his pillow, one fist tucked under his chin as if to keep his mouth from opening. The open eyes of both men glinted in the pale moonlight, one pair dark as the shadows under the bed, the other golden as a harvest moon.

Two words echoed through Remus’ thoughts; Regulus Cuttle. It was a pulse underlying everything that he had said and done since Severus had confronted him. It was an itch which yearned to be spoken aloud. Reg-ulus Cut-tle, Reg-ulus Cut-tle, Reg-ulus Cut-tle.

When Maisie Cuttle had been alive the three of them - Maisie, her mother and Regulus - had lived in a marginally respectable laneway off Diagon Alley, Spill Lane. Her wages had kept them, and Granny Cuttle had looked after the baby. The neighbours remembered them as respectable, other than the shame of the baby, which Maisie wore defiantly. She had their respect, which was a recommendation in itself.

The baker who lived next door to her and whose unusual working hours meant that he saw her more often than some of the others, said that Maisie was quite distraught when Sirius Black escaped - talked of moving to the country, but Granny Cuttle refused and it all settled down although Maisie remained jumpy on the subject. The baker said that Maisie claimed to have known Sirius Black as a child. He and his brother had been kind to her once, when her father had been working as a harvest labourer on the Black estate. She had found it hard to believe that he had gone and done what they claimed.

After Maisie’s death, Granny Cuttle took the baby and moved in with her son to a far less respectable address in Fair Alley. In Fair Alley gossip was a tradeable commodity, and Remus was too canny to tip his hand with open enquiries in that neighbourhood. Nevertheless a few games of cards in the disreputable local had put some information his way, some of it uneasy hearing. The boy was a bit too pretty, it seemed. His uncle was formidable, though, and the child was liked.

Remus ached to pluck him from those surroundings, correct his grammar, wash his grimy little carcass and widen his horizons. Surely any child of Sirius’ would get a Hogwarts letter, no matter what the circumstances of his birth? And with Remus and Severus’ help and love, the child could be all that had been so sadly twisted and marred in Sirius and Regulus. He could be the redemption of the House of Black.

In fact, given the amount of Black gold and property which Sirius had quietly siphoned off to Muggle accounts in Remus' name, Remus had a duty to the child twice over, once for friendship and once for his financial custody of the family assets.

Unfortunately that was not an argument which he could present to Severus. Remus had kept the extent of those assets utterly secret, as Sirus had urged him to, a backup for him and Harry in case they ever needed a last desperate bolt-hole. Severus knew of only the one small account in his own name and the Ministry pension that came with his Order of Merlin. One day he would have told him, but the time had never seemed right.

Remus didn't like to think about the money. Blood money, he thought, forever tainted with the salty desperation of those last months at Grimmauld Place. He would have given it away if he hadn't remembered Sirius' pride in making the arrangements; the fey quality in his grin as he had given Remus the papers and cards and told him to put them in a bolt-hole for him and Harry. Remus had never looked properly at the papers, but he knew where they were, as surely as he knew that Sirius would never have a grave.

A son. Sirius had a son. The money could be used for his son.

But it was not a good time for further revelations right now. Remus glanced over at the slim back presented to him and sighed. He'd lost so many people - lovers, parents and friends - in the war, and then suddenly, like a gift from Heaven, Severus had let him into his life.

He'd always found the Slytherin fascinating, although the fascination had altered its nature over time. At fourteen his slim hips had been pure wank fantasy; at twenty his dark mark had repelled, leaving Remus feeling slightly soiled by his attraction to the man; at thirtyfour, his crisp strength was admirable, and his mature elegance sensually alluring behind the weary bitterness of a man stretched to his limits. And then had come his year as headmaster, when Remus had been bewildered and betrayed by the contrasting emotions raging in him. Hate? Desire? He hadn't known.

Finally, finally, they had come to a time when there was nothing left to keep them apart except lycanthropy and misanthropy. They had found their way through these last obstacles together. And yet tonight Remus felt that they were as far apart as they had ever been. Yet he had a duty - did he not? A duty to Sirius, who had been a brother to him. Surely Severus, of all men, understood the call of duty. He would not reject Remus for it - would he?

It would befit the twisted mockery of his life to date if he had finally found love only to lose it under these circumstances, he thought. Remus gave daily thanks that Severus loved him, overlooking so much in their joint pasts. He did not want to lose him. Surely he wouldn't lose him?

His thoughts continued their fruitless circling.

PART SIX

Severus had destroyed the evidence of the child’s paternity in his tantrum of several days before, but knowledge was not unlearned so easily.

Regulus Black. Without conscious volition his mind brought up the face of the younger boy who had been sorted into Slytherin so long ago. At school, Regulus and Sirius Black had been the sort of brothers who give sibling rivalry a bad name, and yet time after time teachers had called each by the other’s name, much to the Blacks’ annoyance. A verbal description would not have differentiated between the boys, but to partial eyes Regulus was slimmer and slightly taller, Sirius broader across the shoulders. Sirus walked loosely, as if the earth belonged to him, completely at ease in his body, while Regulus idolised and imitated Crabtree, who in turn had taken Lucius Malfoy for his model of proper deportment, strutting straight-backed and languid down the halls.

Regulus was restrained, a loner, while Sirius was all action and never seen without his friends in tow - and yet in a blank moment, cleared of mannerisms and personality, the faces were similar enough to justify the teachers' consistent errors.

And the boy looked like both of them.

Severus frankly and passionately hated Sirius, but he had even less desire to remember Regulus. The younger Black had been an ally at school, the two of them thrust together, despite differences of age and temperament, by Sirius’ hostility; making common cause against the Marauders.

But Reg had been too sweet under the shell he showed the world, too soft. Severus had told him what he was risking, warned him that he would not protect him. But when Reg had faced the Dark Lord for the last time - shouted some nonsensical bravado before a green light sent him tumbling in an ignominius tangle of robes to the floor - Severus had felt like weeping.

Someone had incendioed the body afterwards, and evanescoed the ash. Severus had done his level best never to think of Reg again.

The Black brothers were history. Let them stay in the past where they belonged.

If only he could sleep.

...

“I know you’re awake, Severus.”

“Chattering at me won’t help me go to sleep, Lupin.”

“Have you thought about Reg, at all?”

“I am trying to sleep!”

“I just wondered...”

“No, Lupin. Whatever your question is, the answer is ‘No’.”

...

Two men lay back to back on a bed. Eventually they fell into an uneasy sleep. Tense bodies finally relaxed and sometime after moonset they were to be seen spooned together, tendrils of dark and brown hair tangling together at last.

* * *

 

Severus was warm for the first time in days. Behind him, Remus was snuggled close, one arm slung possessively over Severus’ hip. Severus sighed. Somewhere in the night his fury and turmoil had resolved into something strange and new. He knew what he had to do.

“Remus?”

His lover grunted. If so inclined, one could have taken it as an invitation to continue, and Severus did so.

“If the boy comes here, he must learn proper manners and hygiene. He will mean a great deal of work, and worry.” Severus hesitated. He knew it was the wrong thing to say, but self-respect demanded that he say it. “Do you not think he would be better off with Andromeda?”

Remus might have been made of marble, he felt so rigid at Severus’ back.

“No.”

Well that was conclusive enough. Severus could scarcely blame him after the bitter, dirty fight for custody of Teddy. Andromeda already had the child in her care when Remus came out of hospital and, possession being nine tenths of the law, simply kept him, forcing Remus to take her to the courts. His lycanthropy, bisexuality, age and certain less than savoury elements of his past had been dragged mercilessly through the papers, and only when it seemed that he might gain custody despite everything had Andromeda revealed her daughter’s infidelity and Teddy’s true paternity.

Well, it was said, and Severus hoped to be forgiven after his next words. “Then we’d better take him. Make a good job of him. I’ll tell him all about R...Regulus, and you can dote upon his father for him.”

For a moment he wondered if he had been heard, and then loving arms slid about him and a warm head rested on his uppermost shoulder. Remus’ voice was husky and low. “Thankyou, Severus. Thankyou for not fighting this all the way. Oh love, I was so scared.”

Severus counted in his head as warm kisses were lavished upon his neck and shoulder. Three years. It would be three years until the brat went to Hogwarts. And they still hadn’t extracted him from that appalling uncle of his. He foresaw a large amount of money changing hands, and an absolutely horrid time instilling the basics of civilised behaviour. He couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking. But life was certainly going to be interesting for a while. And there was only so much peace and quiet that a man could stand, after all. He’d quite enjoy the opportunity to shout a bit.

He turned around to kiss his lover. Mmmm! Nothing better than warm, naked Remus in the morning - today and for many years to come.


End file.
